This entry was posted on Thursday, September 17th, 2009 at 10:00 am and is filed under Guardian.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

41 Responses to “Guardian 24,807 – Araucaria”

Many thanks, Ciaran, I really enjoyed this even though, stupidly, I got 14a wrong.

Unusually, however, the Master slipped by his own impeccably high standards in that ‘I AM A CAMERA’ was not the title of Isherwood’s book; it was just the play and a movie, both of which were based on his stories in ‘Goodbye to Berlin’ and, in particular, ‘Sally Bowles’.

Yes, Ian, you’re right [except you mean I, not 1, don’t you?] I’d be happy to defend I = ‘first’, as in 26ac – less happy with ‘I = one’.
[But, as I’ve said before, I’m always more ready to defend dodgy devices if there’s something to smile at.]

I was concerned at first this was going to be very difficult, as the only one I got first time through was 21d, the last one! Then 9d followed, and not too long after 15 etc popped out of the blue. What a day for popping; whilst working on 24a SATNAV came from nowhere – if only every day were like this. In the end it wasn’t too difficult – I almost finished it on the way in – and quite enjoyable. I had to google “I am a camera” for confirmation

aargh, yet again I’ve messed up my days and written a whole redundant post on this. I must remember to check both (a) the schedule and (b) what day it actually is…

Anyway, thanks for the post, Ciaran. The cross-referencing of the clues here was nicely done, and raised a few smiles (particularly SATNAV). I also liked CONE for “traffic controller” a lot for some reason. Some fairly tricky words in here for a daily puzzle, I thought. I wonder if anyone else went through every US state abbreviation beginning with “N” or tried to work out how “sods” could mean “goals” in 9 down?

Bryan: after failing to find a separate book called I AM A CAMERA, I wondered if it might just (!) be a triple definition with the fist being “I can take picture[,] book”….

mhl (re your 14) I realise it’s sacrilege to question the Master but the phrase I AM A CAMERA did come from an Isherwood book:

“I am a camera with its shuter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking. Recording the man shaving at the window opposite and the woman in the kimono washing her hair. Some day, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed.” (from Goodbye to Berlin, 1939)

Someone once told me that “I am a camera…” is the first line of the book that inspired the film “Cabaret”. I remembered the line and so it popped out at me. Also, Isherwood gets mentioned a lot in articles about Berlin between the wars etc. So I just knew it, and confirmed it with the answers going off it.

I too had lamb in mind for 22ac and was looking wistfully at making sods fit for 9dn. In the end I put in everything except satnav as I don’t have one and never think of one, liking maps almost obsessively instead…so I lost my way there. A most enjoyable crossword once I had got into it which took a bit of time. I still don’t think it’s fair for setters to expect solvers to know relatively old popular culture like Isherwood and Du Maurier (although I suspect most solvers are of a mature nature)but I am glad that they don’t draw on today’s popular culture much because I know more about Du Maurier that I do about hip hop.

Typical Auracarian fare.
But if I’m honest, I get a bit tired of all these cross references.
As Ciaran already mentioned, ‘city’ does double duty in 20ac, and I don’t think it’s right (my partner in crime got annoyed again). After constructing the lot, we are left with just ‘French’ which then should be the definition. If Fannecy would have been a city in France, it would have been perfectly acceptable being a (more or less) &lit.
Some of the above posts enjoyed the FLATTERY bit, but here I put a question mark as well. ‘Tyre problem’ = ‘flat tyre’ OR ‘tery’. Not both.
Araucaria tries to solve it by subsequently saying ‘the same’, but that doesn’t convince me at all. If he would have said e.g. ‘and again’ it would have been fine by me.
Of course, I see the great cryptic opportunity of FLATTERY, but something’s not right. And although I am a fan of Araucaria’s, I must say he gets away with it (as he always does).
By the way, STANSTED was indeed a nice clue, but I am quite sure that he (or Cinephile) used that word not so long ago, also clueing it with boys’ names (Stan’s Ted). Nonetheless, clever clue.

One more thing.
In 17 ac ‘seems to miss’ = ‘fail’?
Of course not, ‘to miss’ = ‘fail’.
But what’s the use of ‘seems’?
The only thing I can think of, is that Araucaria tried to find a way to describe ‘fail’ instead of ‘fails’, but it this right?
Anyway, nobody, um, seems to make a point of it.
(But we did)

You’re quite right about 17dn [not ac] and I’ve been trying, unsuccessfully] to see a way round it.

Re 23ac: I don’t understand your ‘but': I expected more outcry about IN STANT but your ‘complaint’ seems to be that Araucaria has clued this word before, ‘not so long ago’. It was actually almost a year ago [24th October 2008], with different boys’ names: ‘Boy’s boy in airport’. You’re not really saying that setters should not clue the same word more than once, with totally different wordplay, are you?

I thought this crossword had just the right amount of Araucarian liberties. He had “city” doing double duty, plus “in stant” – but each device was only used once. And despite the quirky theme, there were no particularly forced cross references between clues, (as I feel is sometimes the case).
Enjoyed “Flattery” and his use of “the same” – perhaps a rare case of Sil’s excellent English producing a slightly different analysis. (I wouldn’t criticise – my Dutch is very rudimentary, picked up from listening to pirate radio in my youth.)
“Seems” in 17dn is superfluous and just for the surface, but I would say a valid link word as the wordplay describes how the solution seems. It didn’t strike me as wrong when I solved it, but I’m happy to agree to disagree.

Re#35:
I have not much against Araucarian liberties, mostly because you might expect them to be there.
So, no problem whatsoever with ‘instant’ (for me just as good as describing STONEWALL with ‘install nothing new’ ). And I accept ‘the same’, although I don’t like it (but then, indeed, I am not British, and maybe I don’t have the right ‘feel’ about it because of that, just like I don’t see (yet) that ‘sincere in flattery’= ‘imitate’).
I commented on it because the blog didn’t mention the ‘same’ bit.
And I accept liberties like TITIVATE for ‘garnish’ and TATE for ‘pictures’. And U for ‘you’ is fine as well – time goes on.
But I still think that the double duty of ‘city’ is not right, although it looks very attractive. And, of course, I immediately saw what the setter meant, so no obstacles to find the solution.

And, again, all these (Araucarian) cross references do annoy me.
‘… to be 25 in 15′ , ‘diverting 24 that 12 3 4′.
There is formally nothing wrong with it, but why should you define a clue saying ‘to be 25 in 15′. And it just looks ugly as well (to me, that is).
Well, I guess, it’s just a matter of taste.